Interview: Rachael Yamagata talks “Tightrope Walker”, Celebrity Crushes, and Overcoming Stagefright

By: Curtis Sindrey –

Rachael Yamagata. (Photo: Laura Crosta)

Acclaimed singer, songwriter, and musician Rachael Yamagata released her highly anticipated fourth studio album Tightrope Walker on September 23rd via Frankenfish Records/Thirty Tigers.

With its themes of perseverance, relentlessness, and owning your own power, Tightrope Walker (Yamagata‘s first album since 2011’s Chesapeake), represents an artistic rebirth both lyrically and sonically for the Woodstock, NY-based artist.

For her second independent release, Yamagata launched a PledgeMusic campaign (ongoing since 2014) and became producer, den mother, and manager, turning her “hermit house in the woods” into a studio. In the process, she rounded up an illustrious array of guest performers, including such Grammy Award winners as Owen Biddle (The Roots), Matt Chamberlain, and Victor Indrizzo, as well as celebrated musicians Ben Perowsky (Rufus Wainwright), Zach Djanikian (Amos Lee), Kevin Salem (Dumptruck, Yo La Tengo), Russell Simins (Jon Spencer Blues Explosion) and others. Yamagata self-produced Tightrope Walker and brought her long-time producer, three-time Grammy nominee John Alagia (John Mayer, Dave Matthews Band) onboard halfway through the process as co-producer.

And despite having the impressive resume of a major-label artist who turns independent, becomes a PledgeMusic legend, gets profiled in two Berklee College of Music marketing classes, performs for President Obama, earns praise from artists like Gregory Colbert and gurus like Deepak Chopra, and who has played Carnegie Hall and Madison Square Garden and shared stages with Patti Smith, Michael Stipe and Pete Townshend, what defines Yamagata most is this: “I have fully stepped into my role as healer, optimist, entrepreneur, writer, producer, and spirited badass. And that is my ‘why,'” she says.

In our new interview, Yamagata details the making of Tightrope Walker, her celebrity crush, overcoming stagefright, and more!

What kind of impact did Philippe Petit have on the themes that you focused on with this album? What does the album title mean to you?

The funny thing is I didn’t know about Philippe Petit while I was writing this record, but it wasn’t until after I had finished writing. I started writing in the summer 2014 and it kind of plugged into this metaphor of the tightrope walker, really loving it as a through line for the different themes I was writing about for the record. I didn’t find out about him until after I had written the record and already into recording it. That’s when I watched the documentary and found out that he actually lives upstate, we’ll see him and he is sort of my neighbor. All of these stranger things I didn’t know of him beforehand and it’s just one of these endless synchronicities that makes me smile that kind of reminds you that you’re on the right path here.

When I watched the documentary [Man On Wire], people interview him and ask him ‘why do you walk the tightrope’ and he said ‘why, there is no why’. That really made me have a panic attack honestly, because here I was, I had just written this record and he used this metaphor of ‘My message to the human spirit, here’s how you can do it, here’s how you keep going.’ Stay strong, focused and balanced. Risking everything but you are the art itself. Even just in your perseverance, make it through the struggles of life. There are highly different scenarios in each song, so when he answered the question of why, there is no why it really made me ask myself like I’m describing this record as how to keep going and I didn’t even address the question of ‘why do you keep going’. I really had to think about that for a minute. Then just realizing that the art of it…the beautiful thing is that are spirit our natural inclination is to survive, to be enriched and to make the best of it, at least my perspective is very optimistic. So, yeah, Philippe Petit has been circling my brain with this record and I’m dying to meet him. Who knows we’ll see, maybe I’m meant to hang out and be his buddy or maybe I’m meant to give him the album and be like ‘here this is for you’, haha.

You launched a PledgeMusic campaign that has been ongoing since 2014 for this album. What has the crowdfunding experience taught you about being an artist in the 21st century?

It started in 2014 but I’m still finishing off the last bit and pieces of it. So it’s been about a two year campaign.

It’s taught me a lot about organization, haha. With an amazing fan connection platform where you can really take time to figure out what would be a cool incentive for your fans or how do you involve them in a process because everybody wants to see behind the curtain in a way. They want to see you, your super fans they want to know how it’s going. They love the behind the scenes so it’s someone to structure a campaign where your fans are involved they feel like they get the glimpse into how it’s going…setup like a business.

There is an element of organization, time and things you have to plan for when you do this kind of campaign and you are essential manufacturing various things. Doing updates is a world of itself. So I’ve definitely learned what not to do as much of what is successful in these campaigns. The greatest gift is having that direct contact with your fans and the mutual benefit of them pre-ordering the record. You’re getting to use the funding towards the album that didn’t exist before. So it is a great system in many respects. It’s defintely hard work, it’s not like a label with thousands of dollars.

Rachael Yamagata’s new album, Tightrope Walker, is her first release since 2011’s Chesapeake.

You’ve played on some of the biggest stages in the world, from the White House, to Madison Square Garden, and you’ve mentioned in the past that you’ve suffered from stagefright. Is that something you’re still dealing with?

Yeah… it never quite goes away. I mean it has gotten easier over the years and I remind myself before shows to be more of the facilitator of the creative energy more than paying attention to my ego, fear or whatever it is. And that helps me a lot. I do feel super grateful that I get to do this and that something I am doing is resonating with people. Try and serve the room in the best way possible.

My stagefright will only get in the way of that so I try to release myself as much as possible. It’s not natural for me at all, I live like a little hermit in the woods I’m not tremendously outgoing in general…it’s a very different lifestyle but there are a lot of artists with stage fright so you kind of battle it. There are such wonderful moments on stage when you interact with an audience and that’s what keeps you going because that connection can exist. You have to get over yourself in order to do it, haha.

Are there any other aspects about being a musician that you struggle with?

Well you always want to get better and I always want to be better than I am. I want to be more talented on the guitar or piano, learn music theory and hit better notes. There are always extreme moments of self-doubt…you want to write better songs… it kind of propels you forward at the same time to fight the self-doubt. And then remaining objective is tricky sometimes like I have to compartmentalize a lot of things in my brain so I don’t lose sight in order to be creatively inspired…you have to not pay attention to a lot of things that will cloud your brain. Whether it’s business, critics or whatever. It’s a hard lifestyle to be on the road… so it’s definitely a project to protect your own sanity, use your time the best you can and still have a blast doing it.

The video for “Let Me Be Your Girl” was released last week. How did the collaboration with Allison Janney, and Josh Radnor come about?

I have a mutual friend Allison and I both know, her name is Emily Wachtel who is a writer and producer and had done a film called Lucky Them. She used one of my songs for her film, so we met and I became best friends with her, she is lovely. Her and Allison grew up together, so she kept planning the seed to Allison saying, ‘You’ve got to be in the music video for this girl who I think is great’, and it turns out that Allison was a fan of mine. When I finally met her she told me she would prepare for heavy scenes with one of my songs called “Quiet”. I guess in some ways it was fate or whatnot, but I never actually dreamed that the schedules would line up or that she would really want to do it, I just didn’t know. But Emily was certain that it was going to happen. For a year she was saying It’s going to happen, it’s going to happen. Some time had gone by and we had done all these music videos, so we reached out and Allison agreed to do it.

I called my friend Josh Radnor who is on the show How I Met Your Mother and he is a writer and director. He filmed Allison before and I said would you consider directing a music video and we might have Allison Janney. Josh is like “what are you kidding” and I even said there is no way you’re going to be free, I’m sure you’re filming a movie. And Josh was like “actually I’ve got some time”. So Josh wrote and it came together very fast and we knew Allison was a great dancer, so we knew we wanted to let her lose within this great space and she was fantastic. Allison brought so many dimensions to the song, seeing it visually and there is a scene at the end that literally moved me to tears. A lot of great things coming together and quickly.

In the “about” section of your website, it mentions that your celebrity crush is Bill Pullman. What’s your favourite movie of his?

He is, yes, I know, I didn’t even know I put that up there, did I tell people that. He is my celebrity crush for sure.

I loved him in the Zero Effect, he plays agoraphobic detective. He’s never allowed to leave the house but he’s liked this brilliant mastermind with thinking things and Ben Stiller plays his representative for clients. It’s a very funny movie. Quirky and I’d say that’s my favorite movie.